Chiptunes

Originally offered to Kickstarter backers of Bitmap Books’ NES/Famicom: a visual compendium, chibi-tech’s Psycho Somatic Generation album is now available to all via Bandcamp. Commissioned as a stretch goal for the 2016 Kickstarter, the album features ten chiptune songs reminiscent of familiar NES/Famicom “house styles”. As chibi-tech explains, “for a long time now, I’ve been wanting to make an original album that closely emulates the composition techniques of various NES game music from the past.”

Chibi-tech goes on to add, “many games had their own distinctive take (both technique & style-wise) on NES music that oftentimes defined ‘the sound’ of their respective companies — up to the point where people say things like ‘Oh, that’s a Konami tune!’ or ‘That’s totally Capcom right there!’. My aim is to make my own original soundtrack that takes each different take and closely emulate both the musical technique & style with reasonable accuracy – while still putting my own distinctive spin.”

Adding to the authentic emulation is veteran composer Allister Brimble who did the final mastering on the album. Check it out for yourself on Bandcamp and grab it for pay-what-you like. Also, take a look at that Bitmap Books compendium — it’s gorgeous — as is their upcoming SNES/Super Famicom tome due out in February 2018.

The combination of chiptunes and live instruments may not be a new thing these days, but the duo of Jeffrey “jmr” Roberts and Mikhail “streifig” Ivanov that make up the band Marshall Art helped to master the the concept in the past handful of years. Having released albums of both original compositions as well as arrangements of game music and even live performances at MAGFest, the chiprock team has created a synergy that sounds both retro and fresh at the same time.

With the recent release of their newest EP, Timeline, Marshall Art continues that trend while also bringing in the talents of post-rock musician Cory Johnson to craft a small tribute to old and new game music. The four-track album features arrangements of tracks from The Legend of Zelda, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound and Undertale that take a low-key progressive rock flavor interlaced with chip music that does homage to the roots of the track’s origins as 8 and 16-bit soundtracks while also keeping things sounding modern.

Black Screen Records, Videocult, Adult Swim Games and composer James Primate are excited to take you on an aural journey into the strange land of Rain World.

With “Rain World: Selection from the OST“ the German record label is releasing the first installment of a massive 140+ songs soundtrack digital through all major platforms today followed by a limited edition vinyl release later this year. The soundtrack was composed and produced by Videocult level designer and composer James Primate with a little help of Lydia Esrig (other half of Chiptune duo Bright Primate) and Rain World creator Joar Jakobsson. The artwork for the vinyl will be designed by Allegra “Del” Northern.

After 5 long years, I am very excited to finally share with you music from the Rain World OST! This has been a huge project for me, and represents a deeply personal journey, both for the little slugcat protagonist and for myself. This music came from the seeds of a single concept: what musical languages and traditions would evolve in this alien world of hulking broken machines, dilapidated supercomputers, toxic wastelands and crumbling ancient ruins? – James Primate, Composer

Groupees, the bundle site that runs sales on music, games and more to benefit a variety of charities, has launched it’s 12th chiptune bundle campaign to help benefit MyMusicRx.

For 9 more days, buyers name their price for a bundle of chiptune albums and choose for a part of their contribution to be donated to MyMusicRx charity, bringing music to children facing cancer and other illnesses. Artists include Zalza, tiasu, knife city, Rock Candy, Chrome Cobra and more. – Christian Bunda, Groupees Music Director

For a minimum of $2, you unlock nine chiptune albums with bonus funding goals to unlock two additional albums and 20% of all donation goes directly to MyMusicRx.

Next month marks the 15th year of the main iteration of MAGFest; the music and gaming festival that started in 2002 and has blown up into a series of multiple nerd music culture events since. Returning to Nation Harbor to the Gaylord National Hotel from January 5-8th, the event is expected to sell out of badges, so if you were waiting on the full announcements of who will be performing this year before jumping on registering, we’ll help you out.

Last week marked the final music performance announcements for MAGFest 2017. Over the past month, video game artists and bands, chiptune artists and nerdcore performers have been steadily revealed for the upcoming event. If you hadn’t been keeping up, here’s the full lineup:

Rejoice lovers of all things chiptune! The good people over at Chiptunes = WIN have released their 5th album in the main series of chiptune releases!

After what seems like an eternity of consideration, the roster for ‘Chiptunes = WIN: Volume 5‘ is complete. All judges have locked in their votes and comments and I’ve used the subsequent collective data to form the final roster. Per the usual, this was not an easy process. To be frank, it never is. And with the extraordinarily high quality of the top submissions this time, it was even tougher. Honestly, I’m just as excited for the inevitable expansion release as I am for Volume 5!

All the same, one thing at a time. ಠ‿↼ – Brandon “President Hoodie” Hood

The album features a slew of returning artists from former WIN albums such as Auxcide, Chipzel, Petriform and more, and also introduces a whole new roster of fresh artists including PROTOFLIGHT and chip-favorite artist Shirobon.

The chiptune-rock duo of Marshall Art are celebrating their 5th anniversary of their band formation, and passing the awesome onto you!

On July 1st, the compilation album Gallery will be released on digital retailers and will feature music from Marshall Art’s entire 2011-2016 discography, which includes covers of game music such as Undertale, Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country 3 and a whole lot more including more obscure game covers from Shura no Mon and non-vgm compositions. If you’re not familiar with Marshall Art, their work of NES-style chiptunes layer with guitar rock has included collaborations with several other artists and inclusion on tribute albums such as Danse Macabre and Chronicles of Time. They’ve also been a staple within the chiptune community and performed at several MAGFests as well as 8static Fest to high praise.

The new release will also have 25 limited edition, hand-painted cassettes available to the most eager of fans to purchase for their collection.

“We wanted to give these songs a proper physical release. I’m a huge fan of unique, hand-crafted merch items. This compilation made for a good opportunity to make an album that is an art piece on its own.” – Jeffrey Roberts, Marshall Art

The 13-track Gallery album spans 60 minutes worth of game music covers and other works, and can be purchased digitally tomorrow July 1st on Loudr and Amazon MP3, while the limited edition cassette tapes will go on sale the same day at noon on Marshall Art’s music website.

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